Chapter 8 - How Far She Would Go
Dana's voice was controlled, but barely.
"The counter-complaint was filed anonymously," she said. "But the language mirrors Rourke's standard phrasing almost word for word. Whoever wrote it has read her case notes."
"Can they actually take him?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"Not easily, and not fast. An emergency review needs evidence of immediate risk to the child. They don't have that. But it makes noise. It starts a process. And if Rourke can get someone on that review board to drag the investigation out while the counter-complaint is pending —"
"She buries all of it again."
"She's done it before," Dana said.
I sat down on the bottom stair. Eli was upstairs, moving around his room.
"What do we do?"
"We move faster than she does. Tomorrow morning I file for an emergency injunction to block any placement review until the Rourke investigation is finished. I'm also going straight to the state oversight office — around the county board entirely. And I need something from you tonight."
"Tell me."
"A written statement from Eli. His account, in his own words, of each of the three incidents. Dates, names, what he saw, what he reported, what Rourke said to him afterward. All of it." A pause. "He's seventeen. He can give a statement voluntarily. But Claire — he has to want to. Don't push him."
I went upstairs. Eli was at his desk with a textbook open, not reading it. He turned when I knocked on the doorframe.
"I need to tell you something," I said. "And then I need to ask you something."
I told him about the counter-complaint. I watched his face while I talked — the stillness, the jaw tightening once and then letting go.
When I finished, he turned back to the desk and picked up a pen.
"What do you need me to write?"
"Eli. You don't have to —"
"I know I don't have to." He looked back at me. "I want to. I've wanted to do something for six years. Every single time I tried, somebody took the pen out of my hand." He held it up. "Not this time."
I sat on the edge of his bed while he wrote. He didn't ask how to start. He didn't stop to weigh his phrasing or worry whether he had it right. He just wrote, steady, for forty minutes, filling three pages in that even handwriting.
He read it back once, made two small corrections, and handed it to me.
I read it standing there in his room. By the third page I had to stop once and look at the ceiling before I could keep going.
"This is enough," I said. "This is more than enough."
"Is it going to work?"
I looked right at him. "I don't know. But I promise you this — whatever comes next, I am not going anywhere. And neither are you."
He nodded and turned back to his textbook. I was almost at the door when he spoke again.
"Mom."
I stopped.
"The little girl from the first family. The Barlows. Her name was Daisy. She had a gap in her front teeth." He paused. "I think about her sometimes."
I held the three pages against my chest. "I'll find out what happened to her too."
He didn't answer. But his shoulders dropped — just slightly — in a way I hadn't seen before.
I went downstairs and called Dana and told her we had the statement.
May you like
Then I sat at the kitchen table and added one more name to my list.
Daisy Barlow.
